Demons, Not Fairies
by Ze Quixotical
Summary: My brother told me how to contact the Fairies and I did. However, I had no wish for them to grant – I knew could find my brother on my own. The Fairy welcomed me back, if I ever changed my mind and found myself unable to complete my task alone. Alois x OC
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Demons, Not Fairies

**Author: **Ze Quixotical

**Summary: **My brother told me how to contact the Fairies and I did. However, I had no wish for them to grant – I knew could find my brother on my own. The Fairy welcomed me back, if I ever changed my mind and found myself unable to complete my task alone.

**Pairing(s): **Alois x OC, possible future OC x OC

**Additional Notes: **This is going to be an Alois x OC story, and I'm going to do everything in my author-ly power to save Alois. However, I have a grand total of this chapter plotted out, which means everything is in the wind. This chapter is simply a preview to assess the level of interest there will be in this story. That's why it's so long (for me) – there is plenty to think about in this chapter.

**Warnings for this Chapter: **Subjective (religious) ideology.

**Disclaimer: **This is Ze, my desk is a mess and my fan is blowing papers and shit everywhere and I'm about to shoot myself in the right eye, and I do not own Kuroshitsuji.

* * *

Eva clasps her hands in front of her and rocks back on her heels, waiting. It's been nearly a minute since the last time she pulled the curtains back from the window to check. She takes a deep breath and holds it, then unclasps her hands to fiddle with the ribbon tied around her wrist. Then she pounces on the curtains and pulls them back to look at the cobbled London street below. It's not a very effective antic – it is not likely she would be able to recognize the top of her brother's head with so many other young boys wearing caps and milling around.

She steps back, disappointed. Behind her, her mother tuts but doesn't lift her eyes from her sewing.

"He should be here by now," Eva says anxiously, peeking out the window again.

Her brother, Charles, left several months ago for an apprenticeship. It had been a very mysterious and sudden affair – Eva hadn't even known he was going to leave until he had already packed one small, ratty trunk. And though he said he'd write, she hadn't heard a word from him. Their father said that he was probably very busy, and Charles was lucky to have been taken on as an apprentice in the first place.

"_He's so careless,"_ their father had said. _"Not suited for meticulous or dangerous work."_

But Eva hadn't agreed.

"_The Fairies will take care of him." _

She'd whispered it, so her father couldn't hear. He was a God-fearing man and didn't believe in Fairies. Charles had told Eva all about the Fairies – that they would grant you any wish if you summoned them. He said that they were nice, caring creatures who watched over you. Eva, at the time, had believed in God.

"_Like angels?"_ she'd asked.

Charles had shaken his head.

"_No. Angels aren't real, or if they are, they aren't good – people just misinterpret the work of the Fairies. They think such beautiful things could only be done by perfect beings. They think that it's not possible to accomplish beautiful things exclusively through their love, since humans aren't able to love that way. _

Eva had liked the sound of that. Fairies weren't arrogant, and God was. She'd much rather be born loved than born in sin. And everything she knew about God made her feel ignored. She'd been told that He worked in strange ways, but what Eva really heard was, 'He works in nonexistent ways.' And since the Fairies truly loved her and Charles, they'd help him with his apprenticeship. They'd watch him and make sure he didn't make any mistakes.

Although, she disagrees on the last count. She believes humans can love absolutely, and protecting those close to her doesn't require her to have to be perfect like an angel or a god. She just has to be able to love as completely as a Fairy.

But even though she loves her brother like that, she hadn't voiced her differing opinion aloud. It may have made him laugh, or even made him angry to be contradicted.

Eva leans forward and scans the street again.

Charles is returning home for his first visit. It is likely his master is coming along with him, to collect the second part of his payment if Charles and their father agree to continue the apprenticeship.

Eva had been waiting for hours at the window now.

"Come away from the window, Eva," her father orders from his armchair. "I won't have you standing there gawping outside all afternoon."

Eva lets the curtain drop, bites her lip, and bows her head.

"Alright," she says respectfully, moving away from the window. She sits down in the chair across from her mother. "But shouldn't he be here by now?"

Her father scowls around his cigar.

"Don't concern yourself with it."

Eva looks at her mother beseechingly but gets no response. She sighs and slumps down in her seat so her chin is roughly level with her knees. As expected, her mother looks up to snap, "Sit like a lady."

Tears sting Eva's eyes. Why won't they tell her anything about Charles? They act like they don't even care that they're going to see him for the first time in months.

Her mother is still looking at her fiercely, so Eva boosts herself back up into a proper sitting position and adjusts her long skirt over her knees. The instant Eva is situated, her mother turns back to her sewing.

Minutes push their way through the acrid scent of cigar smoke. Eva frowns and pushes away hair that had come loose of her headband.

"May I be excused?"

Her mother nods, eyes intent as she pulls the needle through.

Eva gets up and walks slowly to the small washroom across the hall and shuts the door. The instant she's cut off from her parents, she closes her eyes and furrows her brow in hurt. This is supposed to be a happy family reunion. She has been looking forward to it for weeks, but her parents just tell her to stop being so excitable.

Eva opens her eyes and pulls the thin brown headband out of her hair. Wisps of ash blonde hair fall across her eyes but she tosses them back. She frowns at herself in the mirror, scrutinizing. There are three freckles on the bridge of her nose (three and a half, if Eva was to be perfectly honest, which she normally was). How _childish_. She wrinkles her nose, causing them to vanish and fixes the headband back in her hair.

She leaves the washroom and glances down the stairs towards the front door. Maybe she could go sit on the front steps to wait for him.

"Father?" she calls, reentering the parlor where her parents are sitting. "May I go sit on the front steps to wait for Charles?"

He fixes her in a hard gaze.

"Didn't I tell you not to bother about it?"

Eva opens her mouth to respond, puzzled, but he cuts her off.

"Charles isn't coming."

Eva's mouth snaps shut.

"W-why not? I thought – he left a few months ago! That means him and his master have to come here to determine whether he'll stay on for another season! Isn't that right?" she cries, aware that she is being disrespectful to her parents.

"Lower your voice and stop asking questions!" her father growls.

"Don't speak to your father that way!" her mother scolds. She sets her sewing aside to stand beside her husband.

Eva reels back and bows her head in obedience, eyes shut tightly. Her fists are clenched in front of her. "I'm sorry. But wh-?"

_Smack!_

Eva's head snaps to the side. She looks up. She didn't even see her father get out of his chair. And the blow didn't hurt – not until she puts her fingertips to her cheek and finds it hot.

_He hit my face._

She meets his eyes, her own wide and beginning to pool with tears. She knows not to say anything, now. She should've known that before.

"Charles is not coming back," her father says again. "We sold him to the Earl Arnold Trancy."

Eva stands stock still. She dares to speak, "Sold him? But his apprenticeship -,"

"There is no apprenticeship. _We sold him to the Earl Arnold Trancy_. Have you got that, girl?"

"…sold him? For what purpose?" she asks, beginning to feel sick. Her father falters for a moment. Eva feels like her body was dipped in a river of ice water. Though she didn't know anything about the Trancys', she'd suddenly been struck with a bad feeling. "You can't have sold him." She stares at her father, her brown eyes now piercing instead of dull in submissive obedience. _"The Fairies wouldn't have let you! They're supposed to keep him safe!"_

Her mother and father look shocked. A weight drops into Eva's stomach as they stand there. _This is_…her thoughts fragment for a moment, and it feels like her consciousness is being picked away at – by her parents, who so avidly pushed indoctrinated thoughts into her mind since as long as she could remember? God and sin and prayer, when all she really needed was Fairies, and that much had been supplied to her by – Charles. And then they took that away from her. And they took everything away from _him_. Eva pulls away from them, repulsed, and runs down the front stairs and out the front door, stumbling a bit on the threshold.

She hits the street and sprints across without bothering to check for carriages. She jumps onto the opposite sidewalk and slams into someone. She ignores their outrage and ducks around them and through the masses of men and women. She runs until her legs and lungs are burning, then she finally stops and throws herself sideways into an alley, where she slides down against a wall with her knees up to her chest. Despite her panicky appearance, no one has followed her or seen her; she's alone.

Her hair has escaped her headband again, so she rips it off and allows her long hair to spill forward over her shoulders and face, shielding her from the harsh light at the mouth of the alley.

"_The Fairies are keeping him safe. The Fairies are keeping him safe,"_ she whispers to herself, a tear rolling down her cheek. She grinds her teeth together so hard it hurts. _"THE FAIRIES ARE KEEPING HIM SAFE BECAUSE NO GOD WILL!" _she yells, the words so loud that they seem to strip her throat raw and angry. When she calms down, she whispers the words her brother taught her to keep her close to the Fairies. "Hoheo taralna, rondero tarel."

She hugs her knees tighter and shivers, suddenly feeling cold. She opens her fist and raises her head to replace her headband. But when her eyes clear of tears, she stops. There are strange pins of light floating in front of her eyes - she's not in an alley anymore. She's sitting on the ground of what appears to be an island settled in a lake of green water. Trees line the other side of the lake. Beyond them is a blackness so complete that she can't even begin to fathom what it is hiding.

Eva stands up slowly. She's surrounded by waist height fog and reeds. She totters over to the water's edge on unsteady feet. The ground isn't as firm here, and she slides a few centimeters into the water. She presses her lips together in disgust and peers forward at the water.

It's dark below the surface, unlike the rest of the pond, which is a light, almost pearly green. Her eyes follow the dark shape – it wraps all the way around the island, like a strip of land in the middle of the water's berth. She looks for a small rock to toss but finds nothing. The island is pristine. She turns her eyes back to the dark shape.

The water explodes upward near the base of the darkness. Eva screams and falls backwards into a few centimeters of water. Her skirt is soaked through instantly, and her fingers claw into the mud. She is about to scrabble backwards onto the shore when she sees something she's only seen in Charles' Egypt books.

A few feet in front of her is the head of a crocodile.

It's the size of a full grown man; bumpy and scaly and rough-looking. The snout is menacing, and Eva can see viciously curved teeth protruding out of the water. The eyes are raised – bright yellow with slit pupils. She can feel the hostile heat from them on her face – her own eyes turn hot with terror.

Eva's chest is constricting and she can hardly get a breath – she's making thin whooping noises as she tries to suck air in. She automatically starts muttering prayers to Fairies to spare her from the monstrosity that's burning holes into her eyes with its yellow points of fire.

"_OhpleasepleaseFairieshelpmed on'tletmedieohplease," _she wheezes through a sob, trying to push herself backwards, away from it. _"Hoheo taralna, rondero tarel. Hoheo taralna, rondero tarel." _Her arms are weak and don't even seem to feel her brain telling them to move. She isn't even aware of her legs anymore – it seems everything from her waist down is dead and non-responsive. She almost faints, her vision going spotty, as the head stirs. Behind it, the dark shape floats upward to reveal sharp spines as long as her arm.

_It's wrapped around the entire island, ohpleasedon'tletmedie, _she thinks.

"Why have you summoned me?" a deep voice rumbles. The water ripples near the crocodile's snout, pushing small waves of water towards her. Eva whimpers and her throat heaves like she's going to vomit.

"Answer now with your request or last words," it growls.

"Don't eat me," is all Eva can sputter when she's certain that she won't throw up if she opens her mouth.

Larger waves ripple away from the crocodile's snout as it makes a perverse sound that makes Eva think of a chuckle.

"Is that a request, or your last words?"

"R-request!"

"Very well. Anything else?"

"Are you a Fairy?" Eva asks, her arms wobbling as she again tries unsuccessfully to push herself upright. She can see now that the crocodile is even more massive than she originally thought. The width of the middle of its trunk-like body had to be several meters, and its head was quite a bit larger than a man. It could eat her in a single bite; it wouldn't even need to chew her.

"No," it answers, and Eva jumps a little at the short syllable. "I am a demon."

Gooseflesh bristles along Eva's arms and a cold feather ghosts up her spine.

"A demon..?" Eva says. "But I was praying for Fairies."

The crocodile surveys her for a moment longer before speaking again.

"I can grant you any request you would like." A rumble sounds in the back of its throat.

"Can you find my brother?" she asks.

"Easily. Is that your request? Do we have a deal?"

"Wait," Eva says, but cautiously. She doesn't want to get on the crocodile's bad side – even though it had agreed not to eat her, she didn't trust it. It sounded far too eager to make this 'deal'. "What kind of a deal? What's in it for you?"

The crocodile's eyes slit further, like it is narrowing its eyes at her, but when it answers, it sounds amused, and far more _human, _even though what it says is far more inhuman than anything Eva could ever imagine.

"Your soul."

Eva's eyes widen.

"What would you want with that?"

The crocodile makes the rumbling sound again, and it flicks its tail. It looks disturbingly like a smile to Eva. No – not a smile. Not exactly. It's more like the smug look of a cat that just succeeded in swallowing the canary.

"One must eat, mustn't they?"

Eva's mouth twists in a sickened expression.

"That's disgusting!" She shuts up quickly, forgetting she shouldn't provoke it.

The crocodile's body stirs again. It seems to take a century for the motion to reach its tail, which follows it like an obedient dog.

"Do we have a deal?" it repeats, its eyes slitting again.

Eva hesitates. "I know where he is," she says slowly, like she's putting her thoughts together in her mind before speaking, "and I think I could find him myself." She steels herself for his response, waiting to be eaten.

The eyes are still slit, staring at her in what looks like anger.

"If that is your wish. Just remember, you are always welcome to summon me if you find yourself unable to complete your task on your own," the crocodile says.

Eva lets out a sigh of relief. She'd expected the monster to oppose her.

"How will I summon you again?"

The crocodile starts moving in a slow circle, around the island. It slowly disappears beneath the water's surface, so far that she can't even see the dark outline of it.

"The same way you did before."

* * *

Eva raises her head from her arms, blinking away the feel of tears that aren't there anymore. The brick wall behind her is jutting into her back, and her rump is pained from sitting on the hard ground. Her headband is still clenched in her fist. Numbly, she fixes it back into her hair and stands up.

Her nails catch her attention, and she bares them, squinting. There's mud beneath them. It wasn't a dream. And now she has to find her brother – without the help of the…

Demon.

Not Fairies, demon.

* * *

Eva pulls the door to the shop open, glancing around guiltily. If her parents were looking for her, this is the place they'd check first. She stops here nearly every day; she's friends with the owner – an overbearing, perverted, but still sweet seamstress. Ms. Hopkins _('Please! Call me Nina! I'm not known as tailor who indicates the seasons for nothing!') _is always glad to have her, and would plop her down at a table in the back room with a plate of biscuits and cup of tea (after she'd torn her skirt away) in preparation to unleash the latest pile of steaming gossip she picked up from all her noble customers. The latest thing Eva can remember talking about was the little (though the same age as Eva) Lady Elizabeth Midford and her fiancé, Ciel Phantomhive. Eva finds it interesting, but really only listens for Ms. Hopkins' sake – she fears the woman would explode if she didn't have an audience for all of her knowledge.

"Ms. Hopkins?" Eva calls once the front door was shut. Her shoulders slump in relief when the woman steps out from the back room.

"Eva O'keefe!" Ms. Hopkins says warmly. "You've never been around this late before! And I told you, call me Nina!"

"I know," Eva says with a small smile. "I needed to ask…a favor."

Ms. Hopkins beckons her to the back room, and Eva finds herself comforted as their normal ritual takes over and the only thing she has to worry about is the heaping pile of sweets in front of her. Eva digs in while Ms. Hopkins drinks tea, watching her over the rim of the cup. When Eva is sufficiently full, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand (her mother's strict discipline and manners are forgotten while she is with Ms. Hopkins who is perhaps the most robust and ill-mannered being in London).

"Do you remember Charles?" Eva says, suddenly feeling shaky again.

Ms. Hopkins knew of Charles, but had never really spoken to him – he wouldn't be dragged into a seamstress's shop if his life depended on it. He was imaginative in terms of Fairies and other things, but really just a boy. A small smile springs to Eva's lips despite the present situation.

"Of course," Ms. Hopkins nods.

"His apprenticeship…," Eva starts, feeling her throat close. Her earlier reminiscent smile has vanished. Ms. Hopkins' expression darkens and Eva catches it, looking on in shock. "You knew?"

Ms. Hopkins nods.

"I knew. I've served members of the Trancy family for as long as I've been in business. I know what they're like."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Eva cries. She pushes away from the table, the legs of her chair scraping the wood floor harshly. "You tell me everything else that has to do with your customers!"

"I'm sorry," Ms. Hopkins says, pursing her lips. Eva felt a flash of satisfaction – she _should_ be ashamed for keeping something like that from her. "But…I couldn't tell you. You were too young to know how dangerous that family is – how they are, what they do…"

"I'm going to go get him," Eva says, glaring, daring Ms. Hopkins to contradict her.

"Don't be ridiculous," Ms. Hopkins says. Eva's eye twitches for a moment, and then she resumes her threatening demeanor. She sets her cup down on her plate and brushes nonexistent crumbs off of the table to disguise her shame as nonchalance. "Didn't I say that they're dangerous?"

"I have to go. I know I can find him. I just need to get there. And that's what I wanted to ask of you."

Ms. Hopkins frowns. "I can't let you go there."

Eva clenches her fists again and looks imploringly at the woman.

"_Please,_ Ms. – er, Nina. I know how to help him – I can do it. I promise I won't get hurt."

"How can you promise that?" Ms. Hopkins says, shaking her head. "You don't know that."

"Okay, I don't _promise_, I just _say_."

Ms. Hopkins is quiet for a moment, her head bowed, and Eva thinks she may have convinced her when she finally speaks.

"What did your parents say to you?"

Eva looks at Ms. Hopkins' averted face.

"Just that they sold him and he wouldn't be coming home. Please Ms. - Nina." She steers back towards her goal.

Ms. Hopkins sighs and stands up. Eva looks at her hopefully but jumps as a small sack thumps onto the table in front of her.

"Go," Ms. Hopkins says, looking torn. "You know what happens if you don't come back."

Eva straightened up, taking her fists of the table slowly. She takes a deep breath, waiting to see if, perhaps, Ms. Hopkins is just being cruel. When she says nothing on the contrary, Eva throws herself at the woman.

"I know - you'll kill me with corset strings. Thank you, Nina!" She tightens the hug for another moment before dropping down onto her feet and picking up the bag of money. She turns and runs towards the front door.

"Make sure you bring your brother back too! I'd like to meet him! I like boys his age!" calls Ms. Hopkins, as Eva bolts out the door. Eva tosses her head in acknowledgement, a warm heat purring in her stomach alongside the sweets. _She's going to find her brother._

* * *

Eva had managed to find someone going in the direction of the Trancy manor within an hour of leaving Ms. Hopkins' shop. The man she found said he could let her off right at the front door, if she wanted him to. She had thanked him, climbed up onto the wagon, and not taken her eyes off of him since they started moving. He may have been generous (for the weighty sum of money she'd gotten from Ms. Hopkins) but she wasn't taking any chances.

Eva looks up at the darkening sky – _it can't be that late already_, she thinks. _There must be a storm on the way. _The man is looking up at the sky as well, looking distinctly worried.

"The strait that leads to the Trancy manor is easily flooded. If I can't beat the rain, I'll have to let you off about a kilometer shy of the house," he says. "My horses have a hard time with water, and this wagon will rot. It's walkable, though."

Eva shifts reluctantly, but thanks him anyway.

"The road to the Trancys' is extremely temperamental," he continues a few minutes later, shaking his head. A drop of rain hits Eva on the cheek, causing her eye to flinch involuntarily. It's an extremely light drizzle, but the cloud it came from was trivial. The massive thunderheads are right behind it.

"Here is the entrance to the strait," the man says. "Sorry, but I can't take you any further. I'll be stuck there."

Eva nods and slides off the wagon. She tosses him the small bag of money and he catches it with an appreciative grunt. She hears him flick his reins and soon she is alone with only the thunderheads for company.

As the rain picks up, Eva sloshes through a few centimeters of water that covers the mushy ground. She soaked to the bone, her long brown skirt heavy, and her waist shirt clinging to her like a second skin. She pulls it away from her body every now and again to spare her modesty, even though there isn't anyone for nearly a kilometer. She's grateful for her headband, as it keeps the rubbery strands of her wet hair out of her face.

Eva looks up, squinting against the heavy rain. She can't be far from the house now, but she can't see it because of the grey haze. She drops her head again, annoyed. She would just have to bump into it. Something caught her attention in the corner of her eye, and she looked up.

A brief moment of absolute, unadulterated terror strikes her as she is certain she sees the crocodile-demon's head slithering towards her in the water, but in the next flash of lightning, there is nothing. Her teeth chatter together, more from fright than cold now.

_"Nothing there, nothing there,"_ Eva sings to herself through her teeth. _"There's nothing there."_ But a thought hits her suddenly – she wishes there _was_ something there. This would be so much easier if she could just summon the demon again. It would have her brother home to her in a matter of minutes, wouldn't it? It had said that such a task would be easy…Eva looks up hopefully; maybe the crocodile-demon hadn't been her imagination.

_Nothing there, nothing there_, the storm taunts her.

Eva shakes herself.

_No,_ she thinks. _I can do this. It's just a bit of rain. I don't need any help. Especially not from a demon._

But she wouldn't mind help from a Fairy.

The water is nearly at Eva's knees by the time she bumps into the gate of the Trancy estate. She frowns down at it in annoyance – there must be some kind of problem with the dams. That is the Phantomhive family's responsibility. She allows herself a brief, unladylike curse at the expense of the young earl (How do you like that, mother?) and then squeezes through the bars of the gate.

Eva stands on the front step, grateful to be out of the rain. She squeezes the water out of the end of her sleeves and peels her waist shirt away from her body. Thankfully, it is both thick and dark enough to have maintained its opaqueness. Then she reaches down and wrings the bottom of her skirt, wishing she could look more presentable. She's about to knock when she catches herself – is she really just going to knock and hope they invite her in? How on earth will she be able to find Charles in a single night? She needs some kind of excuse.

She mentally hit herself. Why hadn't she asked Ms. Hopkins about it? _Because you didn't have the foresight_, a nasty little voice in the back of her head mocks. _Because you're stupid. _Eva pushes it away angrily. She could still do this…think of what Ms. Hopkins _would_ say. She'd need some insurance…something that would allow her to stay at the house for as long as she needed to find her brother…she didn't think the Trancy family would take to kindly to her poking her nose around looking for their _purchases. _Her mouth twists in revulsion.

Then it hits her.

She has come this far, and she isn't going to let herself traipse back to London in soggy socks. And Charles needs her.

She sets her teeth and raps on the door – four hard knocks.

* * *

**Ze's Note: I think that's a pleasant place to end it – sorry. I personally hate cliffies as a reader, but what can I do? I don't really have chapters this long. Ever. **

**I hope you like it. I'm pretty happy with it myself. How do you like Eva and my OC demon? I thought I was being pretty original with the crocodile avatar...hm.**

**Critiques are welcome and encouraged – I will try to make it worth your while.**

* * *

**Fun Fact: I was looking up pictures of crocodiles and found this enormously freaky one. They are scary animals. I had a nightmare. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: **I don't know why this stupid thing took so long because it's _straight_ from the anime, and extremely short. I promise I'll do better next time.

Thank you to the reviewers:** Phantom Ou, DestinyItalia, **(guest)** Roro, Kyoki no megami, VintageStardust,** and **et12356**. You guys are awesome, and more response I have gotten to a story ever. I'm glad you like it, and I hope that the rest of this story (which I have not written) will please you.

**Warnings for this Chapter: **Highly boring, short, and mostly canon scenes. Terribly sorry.

**Disclaimer: **This is Ze, I'm now addicted to Tumblr, and I do not own Kuroshitsuji.

* * *

Eva relaxes her shoulders as the four knocks ring and echo through her ears.

There – she's done it. Now all she needs to do is wait.

She waits almost a minute, her breathing completely normal, as if her heart and mind are apathetic to the terror she should obviously be feeling.

No one answers.

Annoyed, she raises her fist to knock again.

She waits.

Another minute later, there's still no response.

Thunder crashes overhead and Eva looks up at it peevishly. The household probably has a plethora of servants who just can't hear over the sound of the storm.

Eva steels herself and prepares to assail the door with both fists and feet when she hears a voice, just slightly louder than the storm, speak.

"Allow me."

Eva stiffens in fright as a tall figure in a heavy black travelling coat passes her and seizes a ringed doorknocker that Eva hadn't noticed (and probably wouldn't have been able to reach easily), knocking twice. It makes a much louder sound than her insistent hammering on the door had.

Heat floods her cheeks which were previously stinging with cold. She doesn't dare to look up at the figure's face, instead surveying him in periphery.

His coat smells terrible and sharp, like burnt leather. But it must be warm, because he stands so straight, not hunched and shivering, like her. She can just make out the top of his high cowl, but the rest of his face is too far up for her to see.

She jumps as the door creaks inward and the warm glow of fire hits her face, disguising her slowly-fading blush. Her body quakes violently, as if trying to remind her there's more to be had in that respect. She raises her eyes to look into the face of the person bearing the fervent warmth.

It's a butler. He's tall and dressed in all black. His eyes are an odd metallic gold, which Eva assures herself is merely amber, and he wears thin corrective lenses. His eyes sweep over her briefly before moving up to the traveler beside her. His face tightens an infinitesimal amount – the change is so subtle that Eva isn't even sure it happened, and resorts to pushing her dripping bangs off her face and pretending she hadn't noticed.

"A storm has come," the traveler's voice says past his cowl. Eva's eyebrows cinch slightly.

The butler gives him a disparaging look, disguising it in a lace of puzzled politeness. His eyes drop down to Eva again, and she starts, opening her mouth to blurt out excuses as to why she's out in the rain, but before she can utter a syllable, his eyes are back on the traveler.

"What brings you here at this time of night?" he says.

"I've," the traveler says, and he pointedly avoids looking towards Eva, "been caught outside in the storm. Might I trouble you for a night's lodgings?"

The butler continues to look at him pleasantly for a moment, but before he can speak, a boy who looks Eva's age looks out from around his shoulder.

"Ah!" the boy gasps. His hair is pale gold, like Eva's but finer and not as dull. He walks around the butler and looks at the traveler with hardly a glance at Eva. "Wow! He's just so filthy! He's like a drowned rat!"

Eva forces her jaw to stay clenched, causing it to chatter even more. What a _rude_ thing to say to a stranger at the door! The boy may look privileged and polite, but his voice made him sound like a spoiled little brat. Then he does something even more odd and invasive – he puts his hands on the traveler's shoulders and stands on his toes, so their faces are level. He sniffs delicately near the traveler's cowl – Eva's jaw goes slack this time. The boy is s_melling_ him. Eva's nostrils are burning from the traveler's coat even at the distance she is from him.

"You smell nice," the boy says, smiling slightly. "What's your name?"

The traveler doesn't answer. Eva suspects he's glad that his cowl is covering any expression that may be on his face. The boy drops back onto flat feet and looks back at the butler cheerfully.

"We'll let him stay with us. Got that, Claude?"

The butler – Claude – looks onto the pair with something close to disgust but a moment later, lightning strikes, causing the lenses of his glasses to flash, hiding any ill intent that may or may not have been present in his eyes.

"And what of her, Your Highness?" Claude asks in a carefully composed sounding voice. His face is neutral once again. The boy (His Highness?) turns back to the doorway, where Eva is dripping with rainwater and trying not to look too pitiful. His face twists a bit.

"Yes, her too. Say, what's your name?"

Eva starts. She had forgotten that she'd be addressed as soon as the bizarre introductions for the traveler had been finished.

"Erm," she stammers, searching wildly for the excuse she'd formulated upon arriving at their doorstep. Ms. Hopkins…it had something to do with her…suddenly, the answer snapped back into her mind like it had been loaded in a slingshot with the intent to withhold its information just long enough to make her looks stupid in front of the boy, his butler, and the traveler. "Elizabeth Midford!" she finally blurts.

"That is the name of a noblelady! Why is the Lady of Midford out in the rain?"

"I, um," Eva says, hoping her violent shivering is disguising her lack of proper enunciation, "I was on a good will trip and was separated from my entourage in a carriage accident in the storm." She shivers again pointedly, hoping they'll get the point.

"Ah, I see!" the boy says, not looking sympathetic in the slightest at her fake story. If anything, he looks more gleeful than ever. "Well, you look even worse than a drowned rat! More like a weasel! But Claude will have Hannah tend to you."

Eva opens her mouth indignantly but is cut off by another set of shivers that wracks her body. The boy looks at her, his eyes softening as he smiles in a way that isn't quite nice and is just appreciating the rain for doing such a good job of making her miserable. Is this the way he'd treat not only a guest, but a _noble?_

Claude steps to the side to allow Eva and the traveler to enter. Something bumps the back of Eva's legs.

"Pardon me," the traveler says. Eva looks down to see an enormous trunk gripped in his left hand.

_That looks quite heavy to be traveling around with, _she thinks confusedly, but aware that he is waiting for her to go ahead of him into the house, she tears her eyes away from it and steps inside.

A buffet of warmth hits her immediately and the trunk is wiped from her mind. Claude backs up, gesturing humbly further into the foyer. Three young men and a tall woman dressed in a maid's uniform are standing inside. The boy looks thrilled to see his visitors inside the house and he sashays over to the lineup of servants.

"Hannah," he says facing the maid. She looks at him through her eyelashes and bobs slowly into a curtsy. The maid, Hannah, takes the few steps toward Eva and curtsies again.

"Lady Elizabeth, my master would be honored to provide a room for you. Please follow me."

The boy crosses his arms over his thin chest, leering at her as she speaks.

Eva, with a glance at the bizarre boy, scurries to fall into step behind the maid. As they leave the room, she looks back towards the entrance hall once last time. The butler is standing to the side of the boy, and the traveler across from them – his coat is still on, and he hasn't so much as put down the trunk. She shakes her head and turns around to focus on the long plait of lavender hair as she's led through the dim corridors of the Trancy house.

* * *

Hannah shows Eva to a lavish room at the end of a posh corridor and curtsies again, bidding her pardon and promising to return with dry clothes. Eva manages to smile politely through her shivers, but stands alone in the center of the room, listening to the drops of water hit the carpet, and not daring to touch anything. The storm continues to rage outside, rattling the windowpanes and making Eva jump for what seems like the hundredth time in the last few hours. She's come so far from running out on her parents – she is only beginning to come to terms with the fact that she's standing _in the Trancy estate_, and may only be a few meters from her lost brother.

There's a knock at the door, and Hannah reenters, a dress draped over her arm. Eva spots bright colors and lace. It is the appropriate attire for a Lady, perhaps, but Eva flinches a little. She's well accustomed to the style – Ms. Hopkins had made sure of that. She's reluctant to have to wear something so exquisite and heavy, but knows that a Lady wouldn't be caught dead in the clothes she had been wearing earlier. She hoped that they assumed they were just for traveling.

Eva allows the maid to busy about stripping her soggy clothes off while she herself towels off her hair. The strands have a rubbery texture as they cling together, and the water has weighed down the waves , so her hair falls almost to her waist. It's the typical length for a girl her age, having never been cut. She'd managed to avoid having it cropped with the fever from a few years ago, so while other girls have hair slicked back behind their ears, Eva has to force her bangs away from her eyes with a headband.

"Hannah?" Eva says, trying to sound lofty and sophisticated, like she thinks a noble would sound.

The woman looks up at her politely.

"Yes, my Lady?"

Eva bites her lip. She isn't sure whether this is an appropriate question to ask.

"That boy from earlier -," she catches herself and squares her shoulders, trying to resume her pseudo voice, "Is he the Lord of Trancy?"

Hannah looks surprised, her violet lips parting.

"No, my Lady. My master is the son of Lord Trancy, Lord Alois Trancy."

_Lord Alois Trancy? _

"Where is Lord Trancy?" Eva frowns.

"He passed of a sudden sickness a few months ago – may he rest in peace," Hannah laments, bowing her head so Eva can't see her face. She raises it again. "My master, Lord Alois Trancy took over as the head of the family shortly after."

"I heard Alois Trancy disappeared when he was only an infant – and his mother, the Countess, died shortly after. My, er – mother - was quite close to her." Eva threw the last part in recklessly, hoping it would further validate her status. Hannah doesn't seem to find anything unusual about this, and Eva breathes a small sigh of relief. It is true that she knew about the Trancy family tragedy – her parents didn't talk about it much, but she'd picked it up from Ms. Hopkins.

"Lord Alois mysteriously returned a few weeks before his father's death. He brought with him Claude, who, incidentally, helped him through the grief of his recently rediscovered father's passing."

"Oh," Eva says, but inside, her thoughts are whirring. She'd never realized that the Lord of Trancy had died, and she wasn't sure if Ms. Hopkins knew either. And Charles... Would Alois have kept his father's _purchases _around? He had servants, and, undoubtedly, so had the previous Lord. What would either of them need slaves for?

"My Lady," Hannah says once Eva is dressed, "Lord Alois would request that you join him and our other guest for supper."

A small flash of panic overtakes Eva for a moment – how is she supposed to keep up her façade through a meal where she'll be expected to behave like a lady? But she can't think of a way to refuse. She takes a moment to replace her headband in her hair, and retie the ribbon around her wrist.

Numbly, she nods.

* * *

Eva is led once again through the labyrinthine halls of the Trancy manor until she and Hannah reach a large dining room accented in gold. The traveler (who has still not removed his coat and hat) and Lord Alois are sitting on one side of the enormous table, and Claude is standing a respectful few paces to the side.

Eva totters over to the table, feeling self-conscious and pulling at the ends of her sleeves. She feels like she's playing dress-up, and surely they can see it as well? Claude walks around the table and pulls out a chair for her, and she sits down, glad to be off her feet. A sick feeling worms its way through her belly as she gets more and more anxious. Now that she's sitting across from the traveler, she can see a fringe of long black hair swept across his pale face, but his eyes are still in shadow. She has an odd feeling that he's looking at her analytically, but pushes it away. He has no reason to suspect anything of her – if she'd managed to convince Lord Alois of her nobility, then a traveler like him had no place to doubt either of them.

Eva spots Claude in her periphery, and moves to the side slightly to accommodate him as he leans down to place an exquisitely adorned plate in front of her. She surveys it critically – she doesn't recognize a single food there. There's some kind of meat in an orange sauce and something that looks like asparagus. The rest is foreign. Her palms begin to itch and sweat. She could do this. She had a knife and a fork. No one would be squinting their eyes and watching for right angles here.

She looks across the table and past a bowl of fruit from under her eyelashes, where the traveler is being served. How does he expect to eat with that gigantic coat on?

"Try this too!" Lord Alois exclaims, and Eva's eyes turn to him. She picks up her cutlery and starts trying to puzzle out how to eat while his attention is diverted. "Claude's cooking is disgustingly good!"

"Yes, it's quite magnificent. However…" Eva glances up from the food she'd speared on her fork as the traveler speaks. "There's a tiny speck of sauce on the rim of the plate. I don't sense the mere trifling care it would take to dab it with a cloth."

Eva raises her eyebrows.

"My apologies," Claude says, bowing. "I'll clear this away. I didn't realize a man who doesn't remove his coat at the dining table would have such delicate sensibilities."

The mystery beef-like meat she'd speared on her fork slides off as Eva's jaw goes slack. It falls back onto her plate and lands in the orange sauce, splattering the other food items but fortunately avoiding the tablecloth. Alois is fixated on the traveler, and Claude is still clearing the plate away, so this goes unnoticed. However, the traveler is still looking straight forward at Eva, and there is a tiny hesitation before he says, "You flatter me." Eva can hear the smirk in his voice even through the thick cowl. She hastily dabs at her own plate to clear the orange sauce so Claude won't need to take her plate too.

There was something going on – behind the tall cowl, the traveler was not what he seemed. The animosity between the butler and him was far too concentrated and obvious. But who was to blame?

Eva squints at the traveler from across the table.

Could his aim be similar to her own? She has to remember that the Trancy household is not on her side, no matter how odd the traveler seems to be in comparison. Maybe the traveler was like her –looking for someone gone missing behind the Trancy smokescreen?

* * *

Pacing in the nightgown Hannah had provided for her, Eva debates confronting the stranger. She's resolved that he was _not_ a traveler, _couldn't_ be. His actions toward both Lord Alois and the butler are too hostile. There was _something. _

But does she need an ally to help her recover her brother? _Is_ he an ally? And the bigger question - now that Eva thinks about it, she's already sought after an ally. An inhuman ally. And she had turned it away. Does she need a human ally, and is the risk factor greater than it'd be if she had accepted the demon's help? A human couldn't be more dangerous than a demon who'd admitted that it would eat her soul.

Outside, lightning flashes; just as suddenly, her mind is made up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: **I'm baaaaack! I was getting over the euphoria of winning NaNoWriMo and coping with my addiction to Tumblr. Not really coping, actually. Just...Tumblring. I hope you enjoy this chapter - it still has a lot of the scenes from the anime, but this chapter sums up the first episode. I can't say exactly how the following chapters will differ from the anime, but you should expect them to diverge quite a bit.

Thank you to the reviewers:** et12356, DestinyItalia, Phantomon, **and** Alayna Wood. **

**Warnings for this Chapter: **Mostly canon scenes. Short.

**Disclaimer: **This is Ze, I am now a NaNoWriMo Winner, and I do not own Kuroshitsuji.

* * *

Eva pulls the door to her room open as quietly as she can and peeks through the crack, down the hallway. It's dark and empty – Hannah left a few minutes ago. Eva pulls it open the rest of the way and slips out.

She walks the hallways on tiptoes for a few minutes before she comes to a door with a sliver of light beneath it. It's still in the same wing as her room, so she assumes it is the room of the traveler. Hopes as well – she doesn't want to explain to one of the servants (or Lord Alois) why she is out sneaking through the hallways.

She knocks quietly – there is no answer, but if there is anything she's learned from knocking on doors, it's that people just don't like to answer. She twists the knob and pushes inward, feeling distinctly masochistic - since when had she become so dogmatic? – and looks around the door. The room is grand, even more so than her own. The carpets are thick and embroidered with intricate gilded designs, same for the walls. A massive four poster bed; sitting on its edge, the traveler.  
Eva instantly feels self-conscious – standing before a stranger in a nightgown is inappropriate in any social class - but she shakes her head to clear the thoughts. She can't give up now. Charles needs her.

"Excuse -," Eva's voice falters. The traveler is just sitting there with the trunk by his legs. He hasn't removed his coat or hat. Unusual for someone seeking shelter from the rain to not take advantage of what the room had to offer. But then again, the traveler is unusual. Eva's eyebrows drop and she restarts. "Excuse me."  
The traveler looks in her direction in response, and Eva steps further into the room, shutting the door behind her with her fingertips.

"Do you know anything about the previous Lord of Trancy?"

"I'm afraid not, Lady Elizabeth."

"Hm," Eva exclaims, somewhat in protest. She clenches her fists behind her back – the traveler said the name almost mockingly. His condescending voice…Eva grits her teeth and went on the offensive.

"What's in that trunk?"

"Possessions."

"What kind of possessions?"

"Old ghosts."

"Are you really a traveler? Why would you be carrying 'old ghosts' and not rational things like clothing?"

"Rational or not, it is still my possession and I am still responsible for it."  
Eva looks at him skeptically. His reiteration of what she had said about rational things is the only part that sticks in her mind – the final way he spoke of a singular possession is lost to her.

"If you are so accustomed to travelling, shouldn't you know when a storm is coming early enough to seek shelter from it?" she challenges.

"I do not lie."

Eva withdraws some, puzzled. He was going on about the oddest of things. She lets out a quiet huff of breath and continues, turning away to hide her face some.

"You said you didn't know anything about the previous Lord Trancy, but what about Lord Alois?"

"Whatever are you implying?"

Eva turns back towards him.

"I wondered if you were here for a real reason, not just because you were caught in a storm. Because I -,"

"I assume your presence in this room is a secret, considering how you were so careful about stealth when you entered. You should know that the Trancy maid is about to enter."

Eva has no idea how he could hear her – the storm was loud and the hallway was carpeted, but something told her he wasn't saying it to get rid of her. She looks around, panicky, trying to find a place to hide. With a glance at the traveler, she scurries around the end of the bed and duck behind a purple sofa.

She hears the door open after a knock.

"Pardon me."

It is Hannah's voice. Eva hears her dull footsteps against the plush carpeting after a moment. She rummages around at a table near Eva, who pulls herself in closer so she isn't seen.

"Whatever happened to your eye?" the traveler asks.

"Nothing," Hannah says softly.

"I'm impressed you can still perform your duties," the traveler goes on.

"Hannah!" a voice comes from the doorway. Eva tenses. It's Lord Alois. "What are you doing here, Hannah?"

Hannah's voice takes on a more timid, slight waver.

"I came to change the water, my lord."

Lord Alois crosses the room, presumably towards her.

"Hmm. Are you sure you weren't trying to arouse this traveler's interest by wearing that silly bandage and acting pathetic?"

There's a crash and Eva startles some, almost ready to bolt out from her hiding place.

"Get out of here, you tart?" Lord Alois rages, and Hannah cries out. The door shuts a few moments later.

"Sorry, sir," Lord Alois says after two beats of silence. His voice is softer, more apologetic.

"Is she all right?" the traveler says.

"Don't ask me. She's so creepy. I never know what she's thinking." He pauses and takes a breath. "Actually… I don't know what anyone is thinking." Eva is surprised for a moment – he sounds genuinely somber and confused. Then his voice brightens. "Say, what's in that trunk of yours? Clothes? Sweets?"

The traveler doesn't answer, but Lord Alois says, "I'm jealous. It must be fun to travel places. I want to try traveling too. This mansion is so dull."

"Dull?" the traveler says. "But I've been told there's something interesting underneath this mansion."

Lord Alois gasps. "Really?"

"If you show it to me," the traveler says, "I'll show you what's in this trunk."

Lord Alois laughs brightly. Eva frowns. The two leave the room, and Eva's knees start to burn, so she abandons waiting them out and stands up. She heads back to her room cautiously, hoping that no one will spot her leaving the traveler's room. There is no one in the hallway, so she scampers back to her room quickly.

* * *

She crosses over to the window and looks out. She can barely see the gardens in the back of the house through the rainy darkness, and she could only imagine the sea of water in the front of the house. It had been about knee deep when she arrived, and it had done nothing but rain harder in the last few hours. Where could the traveler want underneath the mansion? How should he know its secrets better than the Lord himself? Perhaps Lord Alois did know – maybe it was trivial and he just wanted to see what the traveler had in the trunk. Eva didn't blame him, not really. The traveler had been so mysterious about it. Old ghosts? What did that mean?

Hannah reentered the room after a minute or two. Eva turned and looked at her, stricken, wanting to say something to console her about what had happened in the traveler's room, but she couldn't without revealing she had been hiding.

She allows Hannah to help her into bed, even though she was quite capable of pulling the covers down on her own.

Suddenly, shouts from downstairs punch through the walls of her room. Hannah, who had been drawing the curtains, turns around quickly. She looks at Eva, sat up in the bed, then picks up a lit candelabra from the table.

"My apologies," she bows her head. "Please remain here, my lady." She hurries out of the room.

Eva slips out of bed after the candlelight stopped bending around the corner into her room.

Like hell, she thinks, and hastens after her.

She makes it to the end of the hallway and turns the corner, expecting to see Hannah's sphere of light. There is nothing.

"Sebastian Michaelis!" comes a shout from in front of her.

She picks up speed and arrived at the top of the grand staircase in the foyer just in time to see a tall man standing on the chandelier.

For a moment she thinks it is Claude – he's straight shouldered and compact and dressed darkly and formally, sheathed like a dagger in black.

But then she sees Claude in the foyer, his golden eyes glinting even from this distance. He's glaring up at the man on the chandelier, his mouth turned down in a frown.

"I seem to recall that your way is 'day into night, sugar into salt, and navy into golden.'" The man on the chandelier says. "Well, then, I shall transform golden…into black."

The chandelier falls – the Michaelis man's doing – and with a horrific chorus of shattering glass and crunching metal, everything went black.

A scream almost indistinguishable from the chaos of the chandelier's crash cut off abruptly. Only in its absence does she notice it, and she claps her hands over her mouth to see if it was her.

It was not.

It is dark but for a thin shaft of moonlight from a window. Then, even that is halved as a human silhouette blocks it. She sees an almost imperceptible slant in the light.

Everything seems to have happened in the short span of a second. Eva realizes that she had crouched down with her arms over her head, presumably to shield herself from the ceiling that must have come down with the chandelier.

It had not.

"It's dark…Claude, I'm scared!"

Eva's breath catches. How did Lord Alois get there?

"Light!" Claude shouts. Pale light sweeps the foyer, and by it, Eva can see Hannah and the identical triplet servants walk to Claude.

Lord Alois is on the ground near Claude on his hands and knees. He catches his breath and then looks up, yelling, "After him! Quickly!" as the glass in the window shatters and the silhouette leaps through it.

Hannah and the triplets rush off and Clause starts to follow. Lord Alois grabs his leg and stops him. He looks up at him, his voice wild. "No, not you, Claude! Don't go!"

"But…" Claude says.

"Don't leave me," Lord Alois whispers, looking away from him. "Don't leave me alone…please…Don't leave me alone, Claude. Please."

"Master…" Claude says. "We are constant companions." He turned toward Alois, no longer resisting as much. Lord Alois relaxes. "Day and night, sugar and salt, creature and corpse…" he kneels down in front of Lord Alois and cradles his hands. "…defiled and immaculate."

"No," Lord Alois protests. "He was right… I'm nothing but a foul little brat."

Claude puts his glasses on and examines Lord Alois as if he is an intriguing test subject.

"You are my master," he says.

"Forget it," Lord Alois says. "I know you're the same…"

Claude leans forward and cups Lord Alois's face in his gloved hands.

"I am your loyal servant," he says. "You needn't set out to arouse my interest. I intend to make one hell of a feast out of you."

Lord Alois stares at him for a moment before pushing his arms away.

"Forget it!" he says again. "Everyone can just…" his head slumps and he trails off.

A sudden shiver wracks Eva. The foyer is so bright, so she is she so cold? She finds her feet and turns away from the foyer shakily.

You will not faint, she orders herself. You will not faint. These people are dangerous – they can't find you here.

Her feet feel as though they are made of lead. She stumbles back to her room as quietly as she can. She sees a door but she can't remember what room she was in. Her brain is too stretched out, and her hands are shaking too badly. She lets herself into the room, and luckily it is hers. The covers on the bed are turned down. She falls into it and allows the ice covering her to transform into an inferno.

* * *

She wakes up to find Hannah by her bed and a cold rag on her forehead. She reflexively tries to sit up, but couldn't find the strength to manage it. Instead she removes the rag.

"Sorry," she says without thinking. Hannah looks up, one eye briefly widening in surprise.

"My Lady?"

Eva shakes her head, too tired to think of an excuse. In truth, she had automatically said it as a kind of thank you and an apology together. She hadn't been sick for a long time (her long hair was a testament to this), but when she had, her mother would never fail to let her know exactly how much of a burden it was on her.

Eva shakes her head again. Then, remembering that she is sick, she reaches up and pats the back of her head. She runs her hand down the length of her hair.

Hannah notices.

"Your fever didn't last long enough for that," she explains. Her voice is so soft. Eva has to strain just to hear her. "That's good." She smiles. "You must have someone looking out for you."

Eva feels like she had been clubbed behind the ears. Who can be looking out for her while she fails to look out for Charles? Certainly not fairies.

Eva gasps violently and coughs. Hannah looks surprised. Eva waves her off as best she can with one hand. She leans forward and coughs into the tent of her knees. Tears sting her eyes as the strain of coughing rips through her ill frame.

Not fairies.

The events of…last night? The night before? …push their way into her mind. Claude…Michaelis.

What are they? What they had been capable of is not normal – is not human.

Eva recovers from her shock and leans back against the pillows, determined to stay calm.

"I'm alright," she says. "But Hannah, how long have I been asleep?"

"Two days. Though you woke up briefly every few hours or so. You were delirious for some of it."

"I thought you said my fever broke quickly."

"It did. It wasn't fever delirium. I assume you were dreaming."

"Oh. I don't remember." Eva knots her hands in the covers. "Is the traveler still here?"

"No. He left yesterday morning."

"What?" Eva says. "I thought the strait was flooded."

"It let up and he was able to leave. However, a dam broke not far from here and we are still flooded. It should be a few more days before your escort will be able to come for you."

"Oh," Eva says again. The escort that didn't really exist.

An image of the traveler flashes into her mind's eye. His trunk. She wonders if Lord Alois ever found out what was inside of it. Then it hits her. The traveler didn't leave the morning after that night. She sees the Michaelis man on the chandelier. Now that she thinks about it, he was holding a trunk. Even more fantastic considering he was holding a trunk while he was standing on the chandelier. What _was_ he?

He was the traveler, but that wasn't the only thing he was.

Claude and Michaelis…such impossible feats.

Cold seemed to seep from the sheets and onto her body. Cold like the water in the demon's domain.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes:** Weeeeeeeeeeeeee, originally content, everybody! I hope you like this chapter.

Thank you to the reviewer for last chapter, **Phantom Ou**, and the reviewers for the previous chapters.

**Warnings for this Chapter:** Touchies. (Rofl. I'm kidding.)

**Disclaimer: **This is Ze, I learned how to draw Envy, and I do not own Kuroshitsuji.

* * *

The moment Hannah revealed that she would not be indoors for the afternoon, Eva had made up her mind.

Hannah had said that she would be helping the three other servants out on the grounds, so apart from Lord Alois, Eva would be alone in the house.

"Claude, our butler, is away on business," Hannah had said. "So if you need anything, I'll have Timber on the side of the house so he can see your window. I'm sorry that you will have to get out of bed to ask, but I'll attend to you as soon as possible, my lady. Please do not get out of bed unless you need me. You're still very weak and you could seriously hurt yourself."

Now, she forces herself to count to three hundred after Hannah leaves to throw back her covers, kicking and squirming a bit to get them off of herself, loathing the chilly reminder of the fairy - no, demon. In her bare feet, she crosses over to the window, glancing out carefully, so as not to let Timber see her. The odd, purple-headed servant is trimming a hedge with secateurs. He's alone. The others must be somewhere else on the undoubtedly expansive grounds. It still seems risky to leave her room, but she can't let the small possibility that one of them may still be in the house stop her from searching for Charles. She would just have to be careful - even if Alois was in the house, at least the demon was gone. She wasn't sure her resolve would be quite so strong if she thought he could hear her heartbeat from across the colossal manor.

And either way - Charles is here. He has to be. And she cannot leave him with alone with Lord Alois and his demon butler while she plays the role of a noble she is not.

She opens the door and looks both ways down the corridor before hurrying down it. For an instant she is tempted to visit the Michaelis-demon's temporary room to see if she could glean any insight as to what his business here was, but of course she had seen all that there had been to see on that dizzying night. But then she shakes her head. She can't afford to waste time, and she doesn't even know where she should begin looking.

She heads toward the grand staircase, stopping at the top of it. The chandelier is intact again, as is the window. How could they have gotten someone to the manor to replace it with the rain, and then the broken dam? With an uncomfortable scratching in the pit of her stomach, she walks down the grand staircase slowly, tracing her fingertips d own the banister. It feels foreign to her - dangerous now that she knew the true nature of the household. Or at least what events had transpired in this room. She turns and glances around guiltily when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, even though there is still no sign of anyone. She assumes that Lord Alois' rooms are on the second floor, so it should be easier to sneak around.

"Charles, where are you?" she whispers aloud to herself. She readjusts her nightgown in preparation and then pads over to where she remembers the dining room to be. She opens the heavy door and peeks inside.

Nothing unusual.

She steps all the way in sees a door on the other side. It's more obscure , like it's there, but it's not supposed to catch your eye, supposedly disguised for dinner parties. Wanting to speed her exploration up, she runs across the long dining room and pulls it open. A dark hallway leads to another serious of doors, and she checks inside each of them until she reaches something promising.

It's a kitchen of grey stone. And on the side wall is a dark wooden door. Eagerly, she crosses to it and yanks it open.

She feels a wisp of breath snatched from between her lips like it was stolen to rejoin the dank chill of darkness she is met with. A stone staircases cuts its way into the curtain of black. She turns away from it a bit reluctantly and scans the kitchen. There's a candle on the counter - already lit. She now notices that there are no windows in this room. She picks up the candle and starts to feel her way down the stairs cautiously.

The cellar is lined with shelves of boxes and containers of all sizes. A quick onceover reveals nothing of interest - then something shining catches her eye. Jammed between a barrel and a shelf is a golden knife. It glints fantastically off of the glow of the candle and she pulls it out. It scrapes along the wood and reminds her of a sword being pulled from its sheathe. She turns it over in her hand carefully - for normal (albeit gold) cutlery, it's _sharp. _Why would there be a gold knife in the cellar? She leans to check for other abnormalities in the vicinity, but loses her balance on her toes and sways a little, landing on the side of her leg. It would have hurt, but she lands on something rather soft. She reaches down and pulls out a piece of cloth. Careful to hold it away from the flame of the candle, she examines it by the little pool of light. She traces her fingers over it carefully, and is suddenly hit with recognition.

"Michaelis!" she gasps, then snaps her mouth shut. She looks up at the doorway to the kitchen reflexively and finds it empty. She returns her attention back to her findings. The Michaelis demon and the cloth from his coat. What about the gold knife?

She stands up, intending to search the floor for more, but finds herself at eye level with a strangely prominent tin. It looks out of place on the shelf, its label turned so she can't see it. She takes it off the shelf and looks it over.

_New Moon Drop. _

_Tea,_ she thinks. She starts to replace it but stops abruptly. She stares through the space the tin previously took up - she can see all the way through the shelf to the other wall.

If there had been another wall. Instead, she's staring at what looks like an iron cage. It goes all the way from the floor to the ceiling. Thoughts racing, she pulls away from the shelf and runs along it, searching for a way to get through. Seeing none, she skins her lips back from her teeth in a frustrated snarl and starts shoving things off the shelf and onto the ground on the other side. She puts the candle as far forward on the shelf as she can and leaps forward, squirming along it on her belly. She spills out the other side on her hands and then her knees and jumps to her feet, holding the candle out so it illuminates the cages.

They're empty. Buckets are overturned inside of them and rotting straw she couldn't believe she hadn't smelled before coated the moldy floors.

Her breath now wheezing, Eva runs down the aisle between the cages on either side, looking left and right.

"Charles!" she whispers desperately, but only silence meets her.

She reaches the end of the aisle, her palm meeting the cellar wall.

The entire room - all of the cages are empty.

She can't hold in a panicky sob at the revelation. She is so close, but Charles isn't here. This place must have been empty for a very long time. It has a damp feel of neglect, and it probably wasn't maintained well in the first place.

What now?

She wants to sink to her knees and cry but that won't help Charles. She steels herself against the tears. It's only a setback. If there is evidence that the Trancy's were keeping prisoners in the first place, that meant there is a chance they had merely been relocated.

She crawls back through the shelf and picks up the knife and scrap of cloth. She knows where she'll get answers.

* * *

It only takes ten minutes of wandering the house to find the door beyond which Lord Alois's office lies. She hears his shouts through the door, and wonders if there is someone else in the room but decides there isn't. He sounds like he's yelling to himself.

Eva puts the hand holding the gold knife behind her back and tightens her grip on it. She feels weaker since leaving the cellar and has to find down a coughing fit. Then, deliberating no further, she opens the door.

"Lady Elizabeth!" Alois exclaims in surprise, then snickers. She ignores this and advances on him with more confidence than she feels - the room seems cold for some reason.

"Don't move," she orders him. "Your butler is gone and you can't call the others from here. I have some questions for you."

"I'm not interested."

"Where is Charles?" she demands. He waves her off.

Before she can think of a reason not to, she stalks toward him, brandishing the gold knife. A red haze of chagrin has dropped over her eyes. He has answers, and he will return Charles to her.

He offers no resistance, but she sees him register the knife. She manages to back him to the edge of the desk and she closes the space between them. She keeps the knife drawn back in her right hand, level with his face, threatening. He glances at it, then looks at her tiredly through heavy lashes.

"That's Claude's."

"Shut up!" she says forcefully.

_For Charles,_ she reminds herself. _Everything for Charles. I will use this knife if I have to. I can do it. _

"Where is he?" she snaps at him.

"I don't know who you're talking about."

Eva grits her teeth and readjusts her grip on the knife. A thin sheen of sweat coats her palms.

"Charles. Light brown hair, eyes like mine. Your height. Sold to the previous earl a couple years ago. Probably talked your ear off about fairies." She tries to blink away dizziness from the exertion, but it provides no relief. Still, she sees the flicker in his eyes clearly.

"You're going to faint," he predicts.

"No, I'm not," Eva whispers. But now that he had mentioned it, her knees had decided to affirm him. She starts to fall but Alois grabs her right arm with the knife and forces it to loop around his neck. He holds it in place with his right hand and supports the small of her back with his left. She tries to resist, hating him. _He's _the reason Charles is being kept from her.

"Tell me," she mutters. "Where's Charles?"

"You three," he says, his chin digging into the top of her head some. She is nearly his height, but she was forced to sag against him.

An instant later she hears the window open. She's able to turn her head enough to see the triplet servants. Two are kneeling on the sill, and the third is visible from only the shoulders up, hanging from the top of the window.

The words _not possible_ ghost their way through Eva's muddled mind.

"Take her back to her room," Alois continues. She feels herself being handed to two of the triplets. She wishes he had at least called for Hannah. The third triplet holds the office door open.

"Hannah," Alois says after a moment. Eva manages to look backwards. Hannah jumps through the window, long hair and maidskirt billowing.

As the triplets leave the room with Eva, she hears Alois begin to scream at Hannah.

They make it back to her room without incident, Eva's vision swimming even though she's no longer carrying her own weight. The triplets put her back to bed in such a strictly efficient, aloof manner that she doesn't even think to be embarrassed. And they're demons, so what does it matter anyway? Everyone in this bloody house is a demon.

She rolls onto her side, eyelids drooping. Ever since she came here, she's been in such potent, unrealized danger each and every moment.

She would not find Charles if they did not want her to. And she most certainly would not survive if they don't want her alive. She needs help. But who can stand up to demons?

She looks over her shoulder at the door automatically.

Then she closes her eyes and speaks.

"_Hoheo taralna, rondero tarel."_

* * *

**Ze's Note:** Oh, snap.

You get to meet her demon.

I'm excited.

Are you excited?

I'm excited.

Please remember to review!

Oh, by the way: Regarding the whole manor layout, I have to say I find it odd that there would be a dining room and a kitchen upstairs, and a staircase to a cellar also upstairs. So I had her go to the first floor, to the dining room, then to the kitchen and cellar. In the anime it shows Sebastian leave the cellar, go through the kitchen, a dark hallway, and then down the grand staircase. Well, fuck Sebastian, he knows nothing.


End file.
